Mendocino County Line
by smc-27
Summary: Their orchestrated happiness couldn't make her stay. They used to be happy together, once upon a time, and now all he had were tattered photographs and fading memories. But he couldn't stand in the way of true love. J/P/L Oneshot.


**A/N: **Yes, another oneshot that had me up and writing at 3:30 am. Pretty much Julian's POV of his relationship with Peyton. Let me know what you think!

**----**

She was his for a while. Not even year out of his twenty five. At the time, it felt too short. He still felt that way sometimes. He'd get caught up in a scent that wasn't quite right, but would remind him of her nonetheless, or he'd hear one of her favourite songs that he'd always hated, and he had to smile at the memory of the beautifully broken girl that he helped to heal.

He often questioned whether he still would have gotten involved with her, had he known when he met her that the tears staining her cheeks over a man who didn't realize that when he let her go, she'd never get over him. He wished he could say he wouldn't have, but he knew it would be a lie. Even in the moment of their first meeting, she was tragically gorgeous and somehow the sweetest girl he'd ever met. She was biting and sarcastic and she had basically told him to go to hell, but he left her with some parting words that he could tell had an effect on her. And that split second of understanding between them - where he wasn't just a smirking movie producer, and she wasn't just an angry crying girl - had left him with a memory that he didn't know at the time he'd always cherish.

And he never forgot her or that day. Every so often, he'd see a girl with hair similar to hers and wonder where she was and what had made her cry that morning, when he found her slamming her tiny fists against the hard plastic, unsure of whether she was trying to hurt the machine, or herself. That was all he had of her; the memory of her face and the place where she worked. He'd gone back to that office a couple months later, after a particularly embarrassing case of mistaken identity had him chasing a woman down the street like a madman.

But she no longer worked there, and he was so shaken by that, that he hadn't even thought to ask her name.

So he forgot about her. He chalked it up to 'not meant to be' and went on his way, diving back into his life of bachelorhood and a string of short, meaningless relationships that he took nothing from, and left his partners with broken hearts or anger, caused by his flippant attitude towards their emotions. He just wasn't ready for a relationship. Or he hadn't found the person who would _make_ him ready.

When he saw her, nearly 7 months to the day after their first meeting - not that he'd ever admit to having remembered the date - there was no mistaking it was her. She was unchanged, right down to the tears on her cheeks and the hoarseness of her voice, no doubt from the lump that would have been in her throat.

Had he known, however, that the book that he inadvertently knocked to the ground would be the one that tore them apart, he would have left it there and swept her away before she could notice.

She was still sarcastic and wanted nothing to do with him, and it was a challenge he was more than willing to accept. So, some quick thinking on his part, and she was the prettiest girl in the room as he accepted donations from investors for his next movie. The first smile he'd seen from her damn near stopped his heart, though he covered it well. He didn't want to be that guy; the guy whose blood warmed at her laugh. She was quickly making him change his mind.

She complained about her clothing, and he wanted to erase all doubt from her mind, but it simply wasn't his style to do so. He muttered something about her looking great, and gave her a line about clothing choices in Hollywood. And there was that smile again. She was quickly becoming one of his favourite people, and he didn't know anything about her.

Their next 'date' - their first real date, as they'd later disagree and playfully argue about (he insisted it wasn't, she insisted it was) - was the 4th of July. It was cheesy in all the best ways. She wore a red top sent to her in a package with a long note from her best friend, and a pair of denim shorts with her flip flops. Halfway through the day, she quickly pulled her hair up in a way that, given the amount of time it took her to do, he marveled at. She was gorgeous without even trying. They ate ice cream and burgers at the park near his apartment where a celebration was going on. They sat on a blanket on the grass as the sun went down, and he managed to sweet talk a neighbouring family into surrendering two pieces of watermelon, returning to Peyton with a smug grin as he held the fruit out for her to take. The 10 year old from the same family would later, in the dark, offer them sparklers, which they took and lit. She called him a dork when he waved it in the air and wrote _J+P_, though they both knew full well that she secretly thought it was sweet. She took his hand as they watched the fireworks, and they stayed that way the entire walk back to her place.

She didn't ask him to come in, and he hadn't expected her to, not that he would have declined if she had. But when she turned to him just before she opened the door, he knew she was about to kiss him. It was electric. It hit him in a way that no other kiss since his first had done. Butterflies and all that.

They were near inseparable after that. Nearly every day was spent together, and she'd given him a key to her apartment only a month after they'd started dating. She'd come home to find him cooking in her kitchen with music playing, and she'd tell him that she didn't understand how he could be so sweet to her, but so stubborn and smarmy to everyone else. He'd mumble something about that being part of his charm and kiss her, and that answer would satisfy her.

But he was sweet to her because she deserved it, and he wanted to hang onto her as long as he could.

Three months into their relationship, they went away for the weekend. One of his friends had a house in Mendocino County wine country, so she took Friday off and they drove up the coast. He explained to her that he wanted to find 'their' wine. When she laughed and questioned what he meant, he said he'd always thought that, along with having a song, every couple should have a wine. Something they both love and would always have in the house. She would have laughed if that wasn't nearly the most romantic thing she'd ever heard. _Nearly_.

And they found a Merlot that suited them. It was the perfect mixture of sweet and bold, and had fruity notes they both savored, despite their vastly differing tastes. They looked at each other after that first sip, and he knew that was their wine. He bought two cases.

It was paradise; the two of them, wine country, a mid-fall evening. Then he realized that their relationship as a whole was paradise. It was cheesy and completely unlike him to even think it, so he kept his mouth closed and didn't mention it.

But as they watched the sun sink in the west, him standing behind her on the balcony with a blanket around them both, sipping _their_ wine from simple glasses, she said the words he'd been patiently waiting for. Well, one phrase he'd been waiting for. _Move in with me._

The first I love you was sweet and playful and perfectly timed and wonderfully _them_. He hadn't wanted to say it first, but with her hair falling around her like a halo and her hands on his chest and after the kiss they'd just shared, he knew he had to speak the words. And she said them back. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard anything sound so sweet as those words in her soft voice.

He'd never forget the look of complete pride on her face when he burst through the door to their apartment - _their apartment_ - and told her that his movie would be showing at Sundance. She leaped into his arms and he spun her around and he felt like he might just cry, if he was the kind of guy who cried. He felt like he had it all. He had the girl. He had the career. He had this beautiful girl who _loved_ that he had his career.

He ignored the tattered copy of the familiar book that had fallen to the floor as she jumped off the sofa to congratulate him.

They went back to Mendocino County to celebrate. His friends were throwing him a party, and though it was mid-December and they maybe shouldn't have, they stood on that same balcony, with that same blanket and that same wine, and he quietly thanked her for believing in him. She turned in his arms and kissed him the way he wanted to be kissed before heading into the house to get ready for bed. He followed her inside and moved the bags they'd carelessly thrown on the bed upon arriving. He dropped her purse by accident, and could only shake his head when he saw those familiar white and blue stripes, that illustration of a jet black bird, and the name of the man he was starting to envy.

But he had the girl. She had the book, but he had her. He brushed off that feeling in his stomach telling him he had something to worry about, and smiled at her when she ran from the bathroom complaining of the cold and snuggled up next to him beneath the blankets.

He asked her to Sundance. He was nervous and scared and worrying that everyone would hate the movie he'd worked so hard to create. She assured him that it was great and he was great, and that his film had merit. She put him at ease. She took his hand an held it close to her chest and kissed his knuckles when he looked to the floor, relieved that she'd just said the words he needed to hear.

They were going to be late, and he should have expected it, but he was excited and she was concerned about her wardrobe choices, and they were playing a cute and couple-y game of tug of war. She asked him to zip her bag for her, and when he attempted to perform the task, he found the one thing he was hoping he wouldn't have to see, at least for one weekend.

And that started what would become the end of it all.

And when she took the book from his hands roughly, like it hurt her to be that disconnected from it, he knew. She didn't take the plane ticket from between the pages and drop the novel, assuring him that she'd finally let it go. She grabbed that book like she physically needed its proximity, and he knew for sure what he'd suspected for so long.

She loved that book, and the man who wrote it, more than she'd ever love him.

She thought he'd never read it; accused him of not caring that it was important to her. But he'd read it. Of course he had. He needed to read the words that she was so carefully clinging to, written by the man he knew was responsible for breaking her heart. After that first _I love you_, he'd snuck one of her many copies into his carryon just before he left for a week-long trip to New Mexico where one of his movies was beginning production.

And what he really, really hadn't wanted to admit to himself, or her, or anyone, was that the book was _good_. It was emotional and expressive and carefully thought out. It was written from a place in the author's heart so full of love that it made him wonder if he, himself, was capable of feeling that deeply. Caring that much. Loving that completely.

When he looked at the photo of her that he'd been using as a bookmark (no, the irony of that wasn't lost on him), the one she insisted was horrible since her hair was mussed from the pillow after a day they'd spent together in bed and she had only only mascara and lip gloss, he knew he was capable. More than capable. She'd stolen his heart - his entire world - and he wasn't sure she knew that. Maybe she'd chosen not to accept it, in favour of seeing only what she wanted to see, and what he so desperately wanted to ignore; that her heart would never be his completely.

When he walked out her door for what would be the second last time - the last, when he gathered his things to take to his new apartment - he felt like it had all fallen apart. That paradise they'd created still hadn't made her let go of the feelings she'd had as an 18 year old, in love for the first time with a boy who'd always saved her.

Maybe he should have known, the first time they had been walking down Sunset and she'd seen the book on a table and fished out the crumpled bills out of her purse to buy it, that she'd never get over him. _Lucas Scott_. The man he'd never be, and didn't want to be, for any other reason than it would give him Peyton. Her heart and her love, completely.

His new apartment was clean and well decorated and furnished with things he was sure she never would have cared for. He wasn't sure if he did that out of spite, or if he just realized that maybe their tastes did differ and maybe that was just another sign that they were never meant to be.

He opened his closet and pulled out a stack of photos he knew he'd hang onto for a long time. Scattered pictures of her, or him, or the two of them, or the two of them with friends. He looked back on their entire relationship, and for the first time in years, he felt that familiar sting behind his eyes.

He'd left her.

He'd lost her.

Maybe she was never really his.

One photo made him laugh, despite himself. It was her, wearing a goofy smile and holding up the familiar bottle, the sun dipping below the horizon. That first weekend away together, when he first realized he loved her and she still had no idea. The bottom corner of the photo held a circular red stain; wine from the bottom of a glass that had been rested on the paper. As he flipped through the rest of the photos, and wiped away the lone tear that had somehow managed to spill from his eye, he realized he'd be alright.

He'd be alright.

He pushed her to the back of his mind until six months later, when he got a call from a studio executive, saying he'd found a book he wanted to make into a movie. The title was too familiar, and despite the salary offer that would have allowed him to take the rest of the decade off, he declined. He couldn't do it. It would have meant meeting Lucas Scott, the man who'd inadvertently and unknowingly stolen his world from him.

After that day, he found himself thinking of her more often. He dialed her number before he could stop himself, only to find it disconnected. He called her old place of work, only to be told that she'd left. When he asked what that meant, or if they knew where he could reach her, the receptionist said two words that made him smile, though he knew the implications they held.

Tree Hill.

She'd gone back home. To _him_. He would have loved to hate her for that, but he didn't. He couldn't. He knew she'd look back on their relationship fondly, realizing that through the hurt and pain he'd initially caused her by walking out, that he'd given her the push she needed. He'd opened her eyes to what she'd been trying so hard to deny.

He wondered about her, even still. Curious about her life and her happiness and if her hair still had that beautiful curl to it that he'd made her promise never to get rid of. He wondered if she still had that tee shirt of his that she'd 'stolen' tucked away in a drawer somewhere.

He wondered if, every once in a while, she'd see that off-white label on that dark bottle of wine, and think of him and remember those weekends in Mendocino County, when they'd watch the sunset in mostly silence, arms wrapped around each other and both, perhaps naively, thinking that the rest of their days would be together.

But on some level, he knew she wouldn't wonder. Her hair would have changed and she wouldn't have that tee shirt and she wouldn't wonder.

They used to be happy together, once upon a time, but now all he had were tattered photographs and fading memories of the 4th of July and her favourite songs and the look on her face when he said those three words for the first time.

When one of their mutual friends bumped into him and delicately explained that she'd just gotten married to 'some guy named Lucas', he just chuckled slightly and smiled, happy that he hadn't left her for naught. He couldn't stand in the way of true love.

The next time he headed north, he purchased a bottle of wine that he remembered he'd hated and she'd loved, packaged it delicately, and wrote a brief note before scrawling the address he'd been given for her on the box. It would have hurt him to write _Mrs._ _Peyton Scott_ if he hadn't known how happy it would make her to have that name.

When she received the package, she opened it and smiled at its contents, knowing who'd sent it before reading the note scribbled in his messy cursive, and signed only _-J_.

_You got your happy ending. Congratulations. But Mendocino County will never be the same..._

_**-Fin-**  
_


End file.
